


'Twas The Day Before Christmas

by Persiflage



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Adopted Children, Character(s) of Color, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, CousyWinter, Director Daisy Johnson, Established Relationship, F/M, Food, Future Fic, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kissing, POV Phil Coulson, Post-Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 04:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13181928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/pseuds/Persiflage
Summary: Future Fic: Johnson family Christmas Eve fluff.





	'Twas The Day Before Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zauberer_sirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/gifts), [hamsterfactor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamsterfactor/gifts).



> Written for the Johnson&Coulson Cousy Winter fest on tumblr. I confess, I totally cheated and wrote one of my own prompts: Johnson family (Daisy, Phil, and foster/adopted kids) Christmas Eve fluff.

"Okay everyone, family meeting in 10," Daisy says, and Coulson looks up from the kitchen table where he and Ashley are making cookies.

"Trouble?" he asks softly.

She shakes her head, smiling. "No trouble."

He nods, then glances over at where Mel and Samira are drawing up next week's list of chores. They glance up together and smile at him, and he smiles back, then brings his attention back to Ashley as he finishes laying the final cookies out on the baking tray.

"All right, let's get these in the oven and wash up before the family meeting." 

Ashley nods agreement, then carefully carries the tray over to the oven, and Coulson opens the door and watches as he carefully slides the tray inside.

Ten minutes later Coulson shepherds the three children into the main room, and Ashley goes straight for Daisy, scrambling up into her lap until she picks him up and settles him there, while Mel and Samira sit either side of Coulson on the couch.

"I thought we should talk about what, if anything, we're going to do as a family for Christmas, since Mel is a Muslim, and Ashley is Jewish," Daisy says. "I don't want to impose a Christian celebration on you two."

Seven year old Ashley shifts in her lap and looks up at her, and Daisy lowers her head to hear his words. Dr Cho has assured them that there is nothing wrong with Ashley physically that prevents him speaking in a normal voice – he's just painfully shy, and has come from an abusive background that had led to him retreating into silence. Dr Cho believes that he'll soon begin speaking more loudly because he's beginning to feel safe with them. 

"Ashley wants a Christmas tree and presents," Daisy tells them. 

"Me too," pipes up nine year old Mel. "I don't want – " She cuts herself off and Coulson wraps an arm around her shoulders, giving her a careful squeeze.

"What don't you want?" he asks gently.

"I don't want to be different from the other kids," she says, and he feels a pang of sorrow because Mel will always be different from most other children – not because she's a Muslim, but because she's an Inhuman. 

"If you want Christmas presents too, you can have them," Daisy says firmly. "No one gets left out in this family."

"So we're going to have a family Christmas anyway?" Samira asks. 

"Looks like it," Coulson says cheerfully. At 12, Samira's the oldest of their adopted children and she can be very grown up at times, and at other times just as child-like as Ashley.

DJ-PC-DJ-PC-DJ

Six weeks later, it’s Christmas Eve and they’re all up early to put up the tree that Coulson went to buy yesterday. Then they’re going to bake Christmas cookies – Ashley had insisted and Daisy had agreed easily, knowing that Coulson enjoys baking anyway, and both of them are eager to encourage whichever pursuits interest Ashely, which is baking currently. Once the cookies are in the oven, they’ll decorate the tree and the room: all three children have been busy over the last few days hand-making paperchains and other decorations to hang around the room.

They have breakfast first – that’s the one meal they always eat together so long as Daisy’s not away on a mission. And the children go nuts when they see the breakfast table that Coulson, with Daisy’s sleepy help, had prepared the night before: there are festive-themed paper plates and bowls, specially purchased red and green plastic cutlery, not to mention table decorations (which he’d admitted to Daisy the night before he’d purchased rather than making, as he’d originally intended) of reindeer and snowmen.

Then Coulson brings out the tray of cinnamon rolls that he’d got up early to warm in the oven, and Ashley stares, wide-eyed, when he sees that Coulson’s formed them into the shape of a tree and decorated them with candied fruit and nuts.

“Dad,” he says, and Coulson feels as if his heart’s stopped for a moment, his young voice is so clear. “Will you teach me to make them?”

“Of course,” Coulson says, hoping that the children can’t hear the shake in his voice, though he’s sure Daisy does when her hand strokes his back as he reaches over to set the buns in the middle of the table. 

Next he brings out the Christmas smoothies from the fridge, and Mel squeaks when she sees them: tall glasses of smoothie in red, white, and green layers, which he tops with strawberries and chocolate sprinkles (because everyone deserves some chocolate at Christmas). He slides red and white candy-cane striped straws into the smoothies, and hands them around with Daisy’s help. 

“I guess no one wants oatmeal this morning?” Daisy asks, and smirks when Samira frowns at her. 

“We always have oatmeal in winter,” she says, and Coulson hides a smirk of his own at the betrayed tone of the pre-teen’s voice.

“But it’s Christmas Eve,” Daisy says, as if that’s a good excuse not to have it.

“I want oatmeal please,” says Ashley, and again his voice is clear for everyone to hear, making Coulson swallow a lump of emotion.

“And me,” chimes in Mel, looking from Daisy to Coulson as if she, too, feels betrayed at the idea of not having oatmeal for breakfast.

“Guess it’s lucky I made some,” Coulson says, smirking at the noise the three children make – a combination of cheers and groans at being fooled by Daisy.

They settle down to eat, and it’s an animated meal, enlivened by Ashley demanding the recipe for the smoothies as well as the oatmeal, and Mel discussing with Samira and Daisy whether or not holly and mistletoe are pagan.

As they finish up breakfast and begin clearing the table, Coulson can’t help reflecting that the last couple of years, since he and Daisy and the team found themselves sent into the future, have been quite amazing. Back then he certainly hadn’t expected to find himself, two years later, as a house husband and father to three children they’d first fostered, then adopted. Although the biggest surprise, he thinks, is the fact that he and Daisy became a couple: there had always been a frisson of sexual tension between them from the very beginning of their relationship if he’s being honest, but he hadn’t really imagined either one of them would have the courage to actually act on it. Somehow, though, their experiences in the future had led them to finally admit their feelings for each other, and within six months of their return, Daisy had become the new Director of SHIELD, and Coulson had retired from field duty to help her to foster young Inhuman children. Sometimes he feels that this is the most satisfying thing he’s ever done – aside from ‘kidnapping’ Daisy from her van back on that distant day.

Daisy glances over at him as he and Ashley load up the dishwasher, and the look of love and happiness she gives him momentarily makes him feel dizzy. A minute later, as Samira and Mel head into the sitting room ready to begin working on the tree, she rounds the table and slides an arm around his torso, hugging him to her. 

“Dad, can I go and help the girls?” Ashley asks, and Coulson can’t resist ruffling his hair for a moment.

“Course you can,” he says, and the boy skips out of the kitchen.

“I’m so glad he’s finally found his voice,” Coulson tells Daisy.

“Me too,” she says softly. She shifts until both her arms are resting over his shoulders and they’re standing face to face. “You’ve been really brilliant with all three of them, and I wish I’d been here more to help.”

“Your work as Director’s just as important,” he reminds her, not that she needs reminding.

“I know.” She leans in and kisses him, and he can’t help wrapping his arms around her and tugging her closer as her tongue slides over his before she strokes it over the roof of his mouth.

There’s a muted crash from the other room, and she pulls back, shakes her head, then gives him a squeeze. “We’d better make sure they’re not wrecking the tree.”

He chuckles. “Yeah.” He can’t resist giving her another, very fast, kiss though before letting her go, then following her into the other room.

He thinks he’s the luckiest man in the world.


End file.
